Juan M. Hernández is a Research Economist in the Research Department at the Inter-American Development Bank. He received his Ph.D. in Economics from the University of Pennsylvania in May 2017. He holds a B.Sc. in Economics, a B.Sc. in Mathematics and a M.Sc. in economics from the Universidad de Los Andes in Colombia. Prior to starting his Ph.D. studies in 2011 he spent 4 years as an Economist in Colombia’s Central Bank (Banco de la República). His research interests are in the fields of international finance, macroeconomics and financial frictions. Juan has been working on Sudden Stops and balance of payments crises, analyzing the role of international reserves and macroprudential policies in preventing such events. Another area he is currently working on is the incidence of taxes and access to credit on the decision to become an entrepreneur, taking into account information asymmetries; designing optimal financial regulation and taxation policies that maximize productivity.